It isn’t a babysitting gig. It’s my career, and I take it that seriously.
I have been a licensed family child care provider for more than twenty-five years. In that time I have learned that what parents actually want to know is fairly specific: what will my child eat, what will they learn, will they go outside, and will anyone notice if something is wrong. Here are the answers.
Meals I cook here
Breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack are included in the fee — there is no separate food charge and no packing a lunchbox at 6 am. Everything is cooked in this kitchen: meatloaf, pulled pork, chicken pie, homemade chicken soup, homemade pizza.
I participate in the CACFP food program, which means the meals are reviewed against a nutrition standard rather than just my own judgment.
Learning, the ordinary way
Colors, shapes, songs, recognizing the alphabet, counting. Arts and crafts constantly — Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Christmas presents go home with them, and a Home Depot Kids Workshop kit gets built every month.
But the lessons that matter most here are the harder ones: sharing, getting along with a friend, please and thank you, and how to apologize and mean it. Those are not on a worksheet.
Outside every day
The yard, the swing set, and the rail trail — we walk it nearly every day it is not pouring. In summer we are in the pool, and I get the nervous ones comfortable in the water at their own pace. They come home tired, which is the point.
Crafts, holidays and birthdays
Every birthday gets celebrated. Every major holiday gets made into something. Children go home with crafts and gifts often enough that parents have told me they have a drawer for it.
Six children, no more
New Hampshire licensing caps a family child care home at six children at one time. That cap is not a limitation I work around — it is the reason this works. With six, I know every one of them: what they eat, what scares them, which book they will pick, and what a bad morning looks like on their particular face.
Now enrolling ages 2 and up for September 2026. One space is open. I care for children from six weeks to twelve years.